


Theme and Variations, op. 42

by Toodleoo



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alphorns, Alternate Universe - Classical Music, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Music, Alternative Universe - Court of Versailles, Drama, Epistolary, F/M, Fluff, Guitars, Humor, Literary References & Allusions, Music, Musicians, Romance, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:26:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22277833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toodleoo/pseuds/Toodleoo
Summary: It's themusicthat draws them together.In every time and place, Severus and Hermione find themselves connecting over a shared love.A set of short stories with original music to go along with each.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Comments: 65
Kudos: 63
Collections: sshg_giftfest





	1. Theme

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mundungus42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mundungus42/gifts).



> This piece was inspired by—and is a gift for—the uber-talented Mundungus42, a phenomenal writer and musician. It's written in the form of a theme and variations, which is a common form in classical music, but not in literature. The basic idea is to start with something simple, present it once as the main theme of the piece, and then launch into a number of variations inspired by the theme. There basic gist of the theme, then, will reappear in each variation. However, each variation should stand on its own two feet, almost like a narrative restart.
> 
> I also composed original music that accompanies the written theme and variations, and each movement is inspired by the words and the ideas in its parallel written vignette.

There once was a man named Severus.

A difficult man, a man who had led a difficult life. He was thought to be a cold man, an ugly man, but as he turned away from his past, as he learned to brew melodies as well as potions, he found that he could conjure beauty from the air.

There was only so much he could do on his own, though. Rarely was anyone willing to work with him rather than against him, to hear him as he was in order to invoke harmonies and craft countermelodies that danced around his.

But there once was a woman named Hermione.


	2. Variation 1: Ostinato

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _OSTINATO, n. A short melodic phrase repeated throughout a composition, sometimes slightly varied or transposed to a different pitch. From the Italian for "obstinate" or "stubborn."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When modern musicians play older music, they have to decide whether to play it at concert pitch (A = 440) where modern orchestras play, or lower at Baroque pitch (A = 415). The difference is around 1 note off on the piano, so if someone is playing an A in modern tuning and someone else is playing an A in Baroque tuning, you should imagine a piano hitting two keys right next to one another at the same time. It sounds TERRIBLE, which is why orchestras always tune before they play: everyone needs to be at the same pitch together.
> 
> Also, gut strings are what older violins used until around a century ago, when everybody switched to metal strings instead. Playing on gut strings shows that you're a stubborn curmudgeon.

_OSTINATO, n. A short melodic phrase repeated throughout a composition, sometimes slightly varied or transposed to a different pitch. From the Italian for "obstinate" or "stubborn."_

* * *

Seven minutes had passed, and Severus was still tuning his violin.  
  
It was a gift from Minerva after the war, a fiddle with temperamental gut strings that never held their pitch. She'd taken him to Cremona when he had finally checked out of the infirmary, to a luthier's shop that resembled Ollivander's, but with centuries of instruments, stacked and sorted by type. Then she'd dropped the gold onto the counter and helped herself to a complimentary espresso while a wrinkled man named Pietro Stradivari placed violins, cellos, and contrabasses in Severus's hands, waiting for the right one to make itself known.  
  
And it had.  
  
The instrument was made of the same black spruce that graced his wand. They were both unruly tools, unwilling to be coaxed into creativity by anyone but their owner.  
  
Which was fine by Severus.  
  
He hated the idea of another musician handling his violin almost as much as another witch or wizard mastering his wand. Almost as much as he hated waiting for the other violinist and the cellist from his chamber group to practise. It wasn't as though the weekend rehearsals ever changed time or location: every Saturday morning nine o'clock in the spare brewing dungeon. The best acoustics in the castle, bar none.  
  
Yet here he was, at precisely three minutes past nine, and neither Granger nor Flitwick could be arsed to show up on time.  
  
He finally wedged the final peg in tight as he tuned his E string, and Muggle Studies professor waltzed in, her violin case strapped to her back and her beaded handbag clutched in her fist.  
  
'Good morning, Severus,' she said, a warm smile on her face as she dropped her things. She began unpacking her instrument, an eighteenth-century beech violin with a dragon heartstring embedded in the fingerboard, and fished around in her bag for her stand, her rosin, and various other tools.

Violin on his lap, he held out his wrist and picked up his wand to Conjure a watch. He stared at the thing pointedly, glanced back at the pretty woman, and sighed. 'Morning? Is it still? Good day, Granger.'  
  
Hermione rolled her eyes, accustomed to his behaviour, and pulled out a tuning fork. She struck it against the chair, listened to the sweet note ringing across the chamber, and began—  
  
But it was the wrong note.  
  
Severus frowned. 'A bit low today, aren't you?'  
  
'I'm quite chipper, thank you very much,' she retorted. 'Perhaps you would be, too, if you had stopped for a cuppa before coming here.'  
  
He glared at her. 'The tuning, Granger. You're tuning low.' He set his violin to his chin, picked up his bow, and played one long, resonant note, a pitch noticeably higher than the one that her tuning fork had just emitted. 'That's your E, Granger.'  
  
She sighed. 'We're playing the Vivaldi this week, Severus. That calls for Baroque tunings.'  
  
'It doesn't really matter, Granger.' He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. "Everyone knows that Baroque tuning is a farce inflicted upon us by ham-fisted musicians from the twentieth century."  
  
'Well, yes,' Hermione huffed, 'but the principle, that there was no standard tuning pitch and we can therefore choose anything we desire, stands. And Vivaldi just sounds better, sweeter, when it's lower in Baroque tunings.'  
  
'Baroque, schmaroque,' he quipped, steadfastly bowing his E so that the sound of his tuning filled the room. There was no argument she could offer that would entice him to begin retuning his violin. Besides, he'd actually arrived to the rehearsal at the hitherto agreed upon time, and she was the tardy party. 'I'm not bending to the will of the anachronistic imagination.'  
  
'It'll take you a minute to retune, Severus.'  
  
 _Ha!_ he thought. She clearly didn't understand the finesse required for his violin.  
  
'Or,' he said, still bowing his E, and also explaining things slowly as one might do with a small and incompetent child, or possibly with a Longbottom, 'you can simply tune your own instrument to mine, and we can begin rehearsal sooner rather than later. We're already behind schedule as it is, thanks to your lacklustre commitment to schedules and excellence.'  
  
The look she shot him could have melted his rosin or caused his eyebrows to catch fire.  
  
It did not, however, slow his bow hand. He kept wailing away on his E, willing her to change her mind or acquiesce.  
  
'We couldn't begin anyway,' Granger said. 'Not without our cellist.'  
  
And he should have known that she'd be intractable about things. She always was, whether it was her faith in her shoddy lesson plans or the beauty she swore was in the sunrises she dragged him out to see in the mornings. Unwilling to budge, she picked up her wretched tuning fork once more and returned to tuning her strings just a hair lower than each of his as she ignored him.  
  
It sounded hideous.  
  
And Severus hated being ignored.  
  
She finished her tuning and smiled at him with a maniacal stubbornness hiding behind her eyes, and when she spoke, it was with a saccharine kind of friendliness. 'While we wait for Filius, why don't we begin at the second section?'  
  
And they did.  
  
What normally sounded like a sweet duet now sounded like utter cacophony.  
  
Like a mating call of Hippogriff in heat, or like fingernails running down a chalkboard. Like Minerva in her feline form hacking up a hairball or two pieces of polystyrene rubbing against one another as he unpacked Potions ingredients. Like Longbottom asking Hermione if she'd enjoy a private tour of the greenhouses last night after dinner, and her acceptance of the herbologist's offer.  
  
But Severus wasn't going to be the first to cave and agree to retune.  
  
'So sorry, so sorry!' came Flitwick's voice from the hall. The door burst open and a cello case rolled in, followed by a man who seemed too small for his instrument.  
  
He stopped, listening to the two violins at war with one another.  
  
And glanced between the two professors.  
  
'Er...' he began, not wanting to upset anyone any further, 'so... since it's Vivaldi, are we using Baroque tunings, then?'  
  
Severus sighed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like the idea that selecting your instrument is like choosing your wand. All the woods mentioned here for instruments are the same as their owners' wand materials. I also really like the idea that a Stradivarius violin is crafted by a wizard!


	3. Variation 2: Suspension

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _SUSPENSION, n. In music, a means of creating tension by prolonging a consonant note while the underlying harmony changes, normally on a strong beat, before allowing the tension to release to harmonic satisfaction._

_SUSPENSION, n. In music, a means of creating tension by prolonging a consonant note while the underlying harmony changes, normally on a strong beat, before allowing the tension to release to harmonic satisfaction._

* * *

She has worked with him for four years now—well, four years and about a month, give or take—and she still doesn't feel like she _knows_ him.  
  
Hermione doubts that anyone _really_ knows Severus Snape.  
  
Which doesn't mean that she hasn't tried.  
  
He isn't the man she knew when she was a girl. She knows that with certainty. Time has softened his edges, and his anger and regret have been worn down by the simple gratitude of a public that finally recognises his accomplishments, that thanks him for the war, and that sees all the life-saving potions he designs for their wives and sons and friends at St Mungo's.  
  
She _does_ know that his laboratory, the one across the hallway from hers, is well-ordered and neat. It's five degrees cooler than hers, and hers is already seven degrees cooler than the rest of the hospital.  
  
There's a bottle of gin in his desk, in the upper right drawer, and she knows that he pulls it out to fortify himself after lengthy brewing sessions. She knows this because she has heard the expletives as he yells to himself about complicated potions. There's also a celebratory whisky that emerges when he makes a breakthrough for a patient.  
  
She's even been invited to partake in that whisky.  
  
It was just the once, two years earlier, over a case involving child with weak bones and growth defects, a little girl named Pippa Campbell who drank Skele-Gro every single night to repair the damage that life inflicted upon her body. When the potion simply stopped working, Snape was tasked with finding a solution. One week turned into two, and the child's condition hadn't improved.  
  
Hermione overheard a great deal of profanity then, and found him sipping a neat gin when she knocked on his door to bring him stacks of Muggle medical articles on the latest developments to treat brittle bone disease. They worked together to incorporate a variety of collagen sources into the potion. The results were excellent, and when they learned that the girl was to be discharged from hospital, Hermione could have sworn that she caught Severus smiling.  
  
The celebratory whisky was opened, and he invited her into his lab where he filled her snifter. The rest of the evening went by in a bit of a blur for Hermione, but she recalled cracking out the classical guitar that was usually hidden behind her lab desk and playing a few pieces from the Spanish masters for her former professor as they plowed through their drinks.  
  
She ended up rather cabbaged, and had been forced to ask Severus for his assistance getting back to her place, stammering out her Floo connection and trying to tell him that they should do this again sometime.  
  
Did she said that last bit aloud? She wanted to. There was no straightforward way to befriend a colleague and a former teacher, and Severus was a prickly pear at the best of times.  
  
But she woke in her own bed, laid atop her heavy quilt with a smaller blanket placed over her, her shoes lined up neatly beside the door and her coat hanging from its hook.  
  
And of course they haven't done it again.  
  
*  
  
Although he _has_ started playing the guitar.  
  
Hermione likes to think it's because of her.  
  
She hears him in the early mornings, before any of the other labs open up at St Mungo's. He plays scales and simple tunes at first, but now he is mastering more complex music. There were a few Spanish romances, some schmaltzy Italian love songs, a few of the Elizabethan lute songs. Nothing terribly modern, except for the one time she swears he's trying out Jimmy Page's licks from "Stairway to Heaven."  
  
It seems only polite to acknowledge what he's doing as he picks up the instrument, so Hermione starts to play her guitar in the lab more often. Once she wraps up her experiments and brewing for the day, she plays in the evenings in a kind of response to him. If he plays a Bach minuet in the morning, she counters with an arrangement of one of the cello suites that evening. If he plays some Villa-Lobos exercises in the morning, she gives him one of the improvisations in the evening. When she's feeling particularly adventurous, she even opens her door, willing him to see it as an invitation to enter.  
  
He doesn't.  
  
*  
  
They're running two of only five experimental potions labs in the whole hospital, so they have to share _some_ conversations about patients and projects. When she has questions about brewing methods, she turns to him with questions about cauldron materials or boiling duration, just as she turns to her colleague Bonham when she needs to know how to file her paperwork or Smyth when it comes to botanicals.  
  
Severus doesn't seek her out, but he's stopped looking askance at her when she bursts into his lab with notebooks or when she joins his table for lunch. He even partakes in her daily ramblings about the contents of the _Daily Prophet_ on occasion.  
  
All in all, they're rather professional, and they're professional in a way that Hermione finds increasingly frustrating.  
  
Because surely there could be more between them, couldn't there? More than a detached collegiality and begrudging respect? Surely the guitar means something to him?  
  
But they never speak about the music.  
  
*  
  
And yet they are on their tenth month serenading one other.  
  
Or that's what Hermione chooses to believe, when she allows herself to be overrun by her more whimsical inclinations.  
  
She knows that he probably doesn't see anything in it at all. He might not even hear her when she plays. Maybe that's why he doesn't ever talk to her about this? There's a possibility he leaves his lab at six o'clock, heading directly for his home when she begins to strum her guitar.  
  
But she likes to think that he sets aside his research, brews himself a cup of the herbal bergamot tea he favours, and enjoys himself as he listens.  
  
She likes to picture him happy.  
  
She likes to imagine that _she_ pleases him.  
  
Even if she can't quite bring herself to examine that last bit too closely.  
  
*  
  
Severus rarely chooses a piece that is beyond his skill level, but the Rodrigo concerto he is working on now is giving him problems. It's understandable, of course. There is some fast finger work required of his left hand, and it's an advanced piece for anyone, let alone a man who has played the instrument for less than a year.  
  
Hadn't she played it recently herself?  
  
Hermione remembers learning this one, remembers how it had given her issues as well. It's a delicate balance, keeping your forearm relaxed while your fingers fly over the frets, and slight adjustments in the angle of the wrist can make all the difference.  
  
 _Do you have a teacher who can help you?_ Hermione wonders. She likes to think that he trusts her enough to let her watch him play, get her opinion on his approach. After all, the years of lessons she received as a child might as well be good for something.  
  
And yet it's a strange thing, allowing yourself to be taught, entrusting your body and your spirit to someone else. She knows this.  
  
After a week, listening to her colleague— _her friend?_ —grow more and more frustrated, she decides that she'll knock on his door and shatter the spell.  
  
Tomorrow.  
  
Only if he's still playing it, of course. If he's moved on to another piece, she won't bother him.  
  
*  
  
She arrives at the lab early the next morning, before anyone else has shown up for work, and he's already working through the first movement. The same two measures, over and over again, muffled by his door.  
  
She hangs her coat behind her desk, drops her bag, and checks her appearance in the mirror. Then she crosses the hallway and knocks. 'Severus?' she asks.  
  
He stops playing, and she waits.  
  
'Yes?' he asks, guitar in hand. He looks a bit tense as he steps back, allowing her to enter his sanctuary. 'Ah... Granger. Are you here to tell me what I'm doing wrong?'  
  
She blushes. 'Oh, shut it, Severus. You're doing brilliantly, and you know it. It took me ten years of playing before I ever dared to pick up the Rodrigo.'  
  
'Ten years, you say?' he asks, leading her back to the small office with his desk, another chair, and a pot of freshly brewed tea. He hands her an empty cup and gestures towards the pot. 'But you were child. Learning something as an adult should be a more accelerated venture than the lessons one receives as a child, should it not?'  
  
Hermione pours herself a cuppa, a strong, dark Lady Grey, by the smell of things. 'Yes? And no, perhaps. I had the advantage of learning young, which should mean that the physical motions of playing the guitar come to me fairly naturally. And I had the advantage of an eagle-eyed guitar teacher named, and I kid you not, Royston Scales. Mr Scales constantly corrected my hand positioning and my fingerings.'  
  
He harrumphs at that, leaning back in his chair as he sips his tea.  
  
She speaks again. 'Are you completely self-taught?'  
  
Severus colours then, just a bit at the collar, an oddly sweet and innocent response from a man who can be so cold. 'Is it obvious?'  
  
'No,' she says, smiling. 'You sound like you've been playing for years. You never picked up a guitar when you were younger?'  
  
His eyes find hers before he glances down, staring into his tea. 'Perhaps I picked up a guitar in my wayward youth. Tried to learn a little Pink Floyd, possibly impress the those in my acquaintance. The foolish hopes of an idiotic teenager.'  
  
His words feel confessional to her, an admission of sorts. Of wanting something, of being denied, and she decides that she needs to offer something of her own in return. 'I think a good portion of your youth should be dedicated to making foolish mistakes. I, for example, spent over two hundred pounds of my own money attempting to straighten my hair permanently so that I could look a little more put together without going through a whole bottle of Sleekeazy's Hair Potion. I was nineteen, and I went to a dodgy salon that had better prices on hair relaxers, and within a few weeks after the treatment, about half my hair had fallen out.'  
  
'Oh, my, Granger,' he says, smirking into his cup. 'You must have been quite the vision.'  
  
She laughs, shaking her head. 'I should have known better. It was vanity, nothing more. I just wondered what it would have been like to go through life as a pretty girl, you know? I knew it wasn't important, not really, not compared to anything of substance, like kindness or a sense of justice or using your skills to help other people, but...' Her voice trails off as she remembers the owls she exchanged with Madam Pomfrey about regrowth options. 'Anyway, the follies of youth. So you were saying that you played the guitar when you were younger?'  
  
'Just a few chords,' he says. He refills his teacup and opens a tin filled with Hobnobs, taking one and offering her a nibble. 'An... acquaintance back in my hometown had a few guitars, and we tried to teach ourselves how to play. And then, well, my life became complicated.'  
  
This, Hermione understands.  
  
'I hadn't thought about the instrument again until you played for...' He interrupts himself, which is odd, as Hermione knows how that sentence should have ended. He seems uncomfortable. 'Until you played that night after the Campbell case.'  
  
'Will you play for me?' she asks him. 'The Rodrigo?'  
  
'It's giving me trouble,' he says. 'As I am certain you heard.'  
  
She grins. 'We might as well put all the lessons I received from Mr Scales to good use. Maybe I can spot something.'  
  
And he picks up his guitar, sitting on the edge of his desk while she makes herself comfortable.  
  
He begins to play.  
  
And the problem is obvious within ten seconds. Tension. He's tense everywhere, with shoulders raised, his fingers gripping the frets too tightly, even his wrists held at odd angles. Honestly, it is astonishing that he can play as well as he does with the level of tension in his body. The opening of the first movement is smooth and melodic, but he freezes up as soon as he hits the fast passages.  
  
He stops then, and glances over at her. 'Do you have a diagnosis, Granger?'  
  
She grins.  
  
And Severus sets the instrument on his lap. 'You're loving this, aren't you?' he asks. 'Being better at this than I am?'  
  
Nodding wildly, she answers. 'With every fibre of my being.'  
  
'You're too competitive. It isn't healthy,' he says, a light teasing tone to his voice.  
  
'You will always be a better brewer than I am, so I am going to enjoy this for all that it's worth,' she says. 'It's only gentlemanly to give me this.'  
  
He smirks. 'I assure you, Granger, I have never been accused of being a gentleman.'  
  
'Would you like my advice here?' she asks. 'It's actually quite simple, and I'm just going to declare here and now that if you become a better player than me because of the pearls of wisdom I am so graciously bestowing upon you, I'll never forgive you.'  
  
He raises one eyebrow. ' _Simple_ , you say? Simple according to you could mean any number of things.'  
  
She stands up and moves behind him. 'Pick up your guitar.'  
  
He does, holding it as he would for a performance, with one hand positioned at the guitar's neck and the other on its body.  
  
'You need to relax, Severus,' Hermione says, placing her hands on his shoulders, pressing down slightly. 'Relax your shoulders.'  
  
He doesn't.  
  
Or he can't.  
  
So she taps his shoulders again, this time with a more force. 'Unclench the trapezius, Snape. It's not that hard.'  
  
There is a marginal change.  
  
Her hands move down to his biceps, which she squeezes a few times. 'Relax your arms,' she instructs.  
  
Beneath her fingers, she feels that he is trying to following her advice.  
  
'Relax,' she says, her hands on his forearms.  
  
'Relax,' she says, her hands on his wrists.  
  
Hermione leans in, folding her arms around him, enclosing him, her voice soft in his ear. 'Just breathe.'  
  
She breathes in.  
  
She breathes out.  
  
And as her chest rises and falls, she holds him lightly, willing his body to soften into hers.  
  
As she holds him, as she encourages him to slow himself down, she realises how right this feels. How graciously he accepted her guidance, how soft his hair is against her cheek, how good he smells. She considers this man, this man she trusts and respects and _enjoys_ , enjoys even when he's being gruff and standoffish. This man who has intrigued her for years, if she's honest with herself, and who has taught himself to create beautiful music on an instrument—on _her_ instrument, he chose _her_ instrument, and doesn't that mean something?—after they saved the life of a child together.  
  
It has been so long since she has felt desire, and Hermione prides herself on a measure of self-control, even though she is confronting a part of herself that she has ignored for months, and yet—  
  
Yet.  
  
Yet an unexpected madness overtakes her, and she finds herself kissing him, kissing his clean-shaven neck and breathing him in, allowing her forehead to rest against his body, and—  
  
He stiffens.  
  
In an instant.  
  
So she pulls away, embarrassed and ashamed that she was so mistaken about his interest. Takes a step back. And bolts.  
  
Hermione doesn't stop at her lab for her own things, just heads straight for the Floo. As she passes the other work rooms and the reception area, she begins to tell herself a story that she can live with. _She arrived at work early, but she's not feeling well. Is it worthy of a sick day? Perhaps not, but she'll take a personal day._  
  
She repeats this story to herself over and over again as she strides to her exit, and before the picks up the Floo powder, she sends a Patronus to her supervisor, a silvery otter carrying the message that she will be out for the day, but that none of her experiments are urgent.  
  
She throws the powder, steps in, and twirls away for home.  
  
When she arrives, she continues to repeat this story to herself. _I'm not feeling well today,_ she tells herself. _I showed up to work early, but I'm not well, and did I talk to Severus? Well, it was good that I returned home. To rest. Because I'm thinking straight, am I?_  
  
Hermione kicks off her shoes, puts on a kettle, and goes to her home library to pluck out an old friend for comfort. She has the choice narrowed down between the short stories of Dostoevsky and the poetry of John Donne, and—  
  
'Granger?'  
  
It's him.  
  
Severus calls from the Floo in the other room down the hall.  
  
And she considers just ignoring him and hoping that he will return to St Mungo's.  
  
'Granger?' he calls again.  
  
So she answers. 'Yes?'  
  
'May I come in?' he asks, his voice raised so she can hear him from the distance. 'Where the bloody hell are you?'  
  
Her heart beats so loudly that she hears it ringing in her ears. 'I'm in the library. Er... What are you doing here?'  
  
She continues to stare at her books, unwilling to make eye contact just yet.  
  
His footsteps are loud as he heads down the hall towards her, coming for her. 'Why?' he asks. 'Well, you... you—'  
  
'I mean, how did you get in?' she asks, her eyes resolutely focussed on the books before her.  
  
'You gave me the Floo password the night of the Campbell case, if you recall.'  
  
'Oh,' she says stupidly. 'I did?'  
  
'You told me to use it whenever the occasion called for it,' he says. His voice sounds gentler than usual. She hopes it's the voice of a man who will graciously forget that his colleague attempted to force her attentions on him, a man who will walk out the door without confronting her about her misunderstanding directly.  
  
She doesn't remember that, but considers his words. 'Why haven't you used it before, then?'  
  
A soft snort escapes him. 'Your state of inebriation did not endow me with any measure of confidence that you would remember the offer.'  
  
She pauses, then wills herself to spit out some words. 'Right... Yes, well... I decided that I... I'm not feeling well, Snape. I'm sorry you saw me like that this morning. I realised I should stay home and rest up. I'm sure I will be back to my old self tomorrow.'  
  
 _That should do it_ , she thinks. He's an intelligent man, and he is able to read through the lines, hear her apology, and return to life as it was before she'd been struck with the asinine idea of forcing herself upon him.  
  
But she doesn't hear him walking away, and she can't bring herself to turn around.  
  
The sound of her clock ticking is louder than usual.  
  
'You kissed me, Granger,' he says.  
  
Hermione sighs, disappointed and hurt that he is unwilling to let go of her error, unwilling to let her off the hook. There's nothing reasonable for her to say, so she settles on a noncommittal question as she continues to rifle through more of her books. 'Oh, did I?'  
  
'You did,' he says, coughing now for no apparent reason. 'Or perhaps you didn't, but in your clumsiness, you tripped and fell lip-first onto my person?'  
  
A burst of laughter escapes her and she closes her eyes, leaning against one of her bookcases. 'That must be it. I must lack the grace and economy of movement that you, Snape, so effortlessly possess. Yet another thing for you to be better at. You're too competitive, you know,' she says, tossing his words back at him. 'It isn't healthy.'  
  
And then, rather than hearing him approach, she feels his nearness. Hands rest upon her shoulders, and his breath is hot on her ear. 'You really ought to relax, Granger.'  
  
Exasperated and unexpectedly exhausted, she shakes her head. He seems to be offering her exactly what she wanted—himself—and yet he is using her words against her. She wants to believe him, but she is still startled by the strength of her longing for him, and she doesn't trust herself. He doesn't strike her as a playful type, and yet she doesn't think he is a man who would hurt her, either.  
  
She wishes he would speak plainly.  
  
'Don't, Severus,' she whispers, pleading. 'Not if it doesn't mean anything.'  
  
His hands caress her arms, her hands, mimicking the way she had touched him earlier, and he wraps his arms around her body, presses his lips to the column of her neck. 'I'm quite serious, Hermione,' he said. His tongue finds the shell of her ear, and he whispers again. 'So please relax. I have been quite serious for some time now.'  
  
She smiles to herself. 'Have you now?' she asks.  
  
And she turns around in his arms so she can see his face.  
  
His eyes shine with a happiness she has only imagined, but he is pouting like an schoolboy. 'I've been serenading you for months, woman,' he says. 'Did you fail to notice the seduction?'  
  
'Months!' she exclaims, laughing aloud now as she realises that he has been subtly pursuing her for such a long time. She swats his chest before letting her hands rest—just there—on his heart. 'I knew what I wanted it to be, but I wasn't sure what to think.'  
  
He pulls her body against his now, slipping his hands down to her waist and tugging her as close as can be. 'I wasn't going to take out an ad in the _Daily Prophet,_ he says. 'What kind of man do you take me for?'  
  
'And I only kissed you this morning,' she said, petting the muscles of his chest. 'Does that make me the more effective seducer?'  
  
'Perhaps,' he says. 'Or perhaps I am the better _seducee._ '  
  
'That's not even a proper word, Severus,' she says.  
  
Then he weaves his fingers into her hair and he kisses her temple. 'And for the record, I prefer it curly.'  
  
He kisses her neck, just beneath her jawline. 'And the phrase "pretty girl" is trite.'  
  
He kisses her cheek. 'You are loveliness itself.'  
  
He kisses her mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Rodrigo guitar concerto is pretty marvelous, if you haven't heard it! Also anything by J. S. Bach that's been arranged for classical guitar. And... I think it goes without saying that the guitar riffs in Led Zeppelin are some of the best out there.


	4. Variation 3: Minimalism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _MINIMALISM, n. A reductive style or school of modern music utilizing only simple sonorities, rhythms, and patterns, with minimal embellishment or complexity.  
> _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minimalism and oversimplification in music can take many different forms. I considered calling this movement/vignette “Brevity” instead, just to avoid confusion with some long works of musical minimalism (i.e. Terry Riley’s “In C” or something of that ilk). Musically, I’m thinking of the joke that Beethoven pulls in his thirteenth of the Diabelli Variations.

_MINIMALISM, n. A reductive style or school of modern music utilizing only simple sonorities, rhythms, and patterns, with minimal embellishment or complexity._

* * *

  
‘Sing with me,’ said she, a banjo sitting upon her knee.  
  
‘Who, me?’ asked he.  
  
‘Yes, please,’ said she.  
  
He paused, then grinned, and asked, ‘What key?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Question for the ages... is she from Alabama? 😉


	5. Variation 4: French Overture and Fuguette

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _FRENCH BAROQUE, adj. A style of music popular during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in France, most prominently at the royal court. French overtures are characterised by slow introductions with double dotting, overly ornamented, this style also includes the multi-voice pieces known as fugues._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Musically, this comes in two parts. A slow introduction with melodramatic double dotting (long note followed by a super short note), followed by a 3-voice fugue using the theme as its subject. This fugue is really more of a fuguette, as there’s only one episode and a codetta. If these terms are new to you, here’s what to listen for: the main theme will start in one voice and then jump to each of the other voices. When the theme jumps around, sometimes it’ll move higher or lower in pitch, and as soon as the second voice plays the theme, the first voice will play a countersubject, which is like a partner melody to the main melody. Anyway, the main thought in a fugue is that there are multiple voices going on, which is why I paired it with an epistolary format in the written vignette.
> 
> Er... and Lucius here is based on Lully, chief musician and music master at Versailles, whose life and death is worth a gander. The enema chat comes from the practise of the court, too, as Louis XIV was strangely obsessed with them. Albus Quatorze, of course, is Albus XIV, standing in for Louis the Sun King.
> 
> WARNING: French spellings of character names!

_FRENCH BAROQUE, adj. A style of music popular during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in France, most prominently at the royal court. French overtures are characterised by slow introductions with double dotting, overly ornamented, this style also includes the multi-voice pieces known as fugues._

* * *

****

**_Les liaisons musicales_ **

  
  
**Preface**  
  
This work—or rather assortment or possibly even assemblage—of letters from a variety of private individuals, a work which the reading public will, perhaps, still find too voluminous, contains but the most minuscule of portions of the complete correspondence from which it is extracted. Myself being appointed to arrange it by the persons in whose possession this complete correspondence was, and who, I knew, intended it for publication in some fashion now that the involved parties have been dead some twenty years, I asked, for my sole compensation, the opportunity to reject every missive that appeared to me useless or outside the scope of this particular project, and I have endeavoured to preserve only the letters which appeared necessary to illustrate the events of the musicking at the court of Albus Quatorze, or to unfold the characters of the illustrious personages contained herein, notably the great composer and conductor Lucius Malefoy, the most talented lady composer and harpsichordist Hermione Rogue, née Granger, and her magnanimous and munificent husband, the organist and theoretician Severus Rogue.   
  
_Éloise Londubat, née Rogue  
From the Castle of ——, March of 17—_  
  


* * *

  
  
 **Letter I**  
  
 _HERMIONE GRANGER to MINERVA McGONAGALL, at the Convent of the Flamelites of ——_  
  
At last, my dear friend, I have the opportunity to write to you with news of my arrival at the court of Albus Quatorze! I am ever mindful of your voice, and can hear it still ringing in my ears as you accuse me of burying myself in my books and in my musical studies, of forgetting to correspond with you. Well, Minerva, I hope you are delighted to find yourself incorrect in your assumptions. It is but my fourth day in residence at the castle of ——, and already I have sequestered myself in my little atelier in order to write to you. And write I shall!  
  
Myself and three other newly arrived musicians have already performed for the his court composer, a haughty fellow with the fairest hair I have ever seen on a man. His name is Malefoy, and while his mien is aristocratic and cavalier, I have yet to determine if he is a man of bad faith. And what of the performances, I can hear you asking? I will tell you that I performed admirably, playing both a German fugue from Herr Bach and a fantasy from an Englishman named Purcell. I understand that Monsiour Malefoy, the maître de musique here, will make decisions on our behalf as to appropriate music tutors; I shall be placed either with Malefoy himself or with the court organist, a man by the name of Severus Rogue.  
  
And now, Minerva, I shall bid you adieu, and also run off to the library in an attempt to borrow reading materials, lest my mind be dulled. I am surrounded by too much finery, too many laces and brocades and perfumes, and not nearly enough Boethius or Catullus.  
  
I remain your devoted friend and am now additionally your liberated student. I send my love and affection to you.  
  
 _Paris, August 3, 16—_

* * *

  
  
**Letter II**  
  
 _SEVERUS ROGUE to LUCIUS MALEFOY, from the Castle of ——_  
  
Your interminable commmands, Monsieur Malefoy, make despotism look like a generous system of liberality and self-determination. Am I correct in the understanding that I have been assigned not one, but _four_ thick-witted children masquerading as students of music?  
  
They are, to a person, a waste of my intelligence and skill. Here shall I itemise the talentless dullards who, by your instruction, force themselves upon my morning practise hours: one Neville Londubat, a player of the sackbut and serpent whose lung capacity fails to outstrip that of an oversized toad; one Lavande Marron, a soprano with rather more ear-wax than brains; one Ronald Weasley, a pigeon-livered arse whose flute-playing lacks both melody and rhythm; and one Hermione Granger, whose inexplicable enthusiasm for historical keyboard treatises would bore even the men who wrote them.  
  
Remove them from my schedule, Malefoy. Else I shall send them to your quarters to interrupt you during your daily rosewater enema.  
  
 _August 5, 16—_  
  


* * *

  
  
 **Letter III**  
  
 _HERMIONE GRANGER to MINERVA McGONAGALL, at the Convent of the Flamelites of ——_  
  
Thank you, friend, for the warmth and length of your last letter. I write with surprising news, Minerva! One of my fellow students has already abandoned his course of study. _Povre_ Ronald Weasley, whose family is, I believe, familiar to you, has moved from the castle of —— to take up a post of residence in a village school near Calais. Our tutor Severus Rogue, chastises and challenges us all --it is true --but the intensity of his instruction has roused a fierce determination in me to prove myself both to Professor Rogue himself and also Maître Malefoy, the latter of whom may permit me to perform for the king under his leadership, if I show myself worthy. Malefoy's conducting style is intense; he holds a heavy staff topped with a silver snake, and he drops this staff in time with the music to unite the orchestra with cohesion.  
  
And now I find myself with a question of a delicate nature, Minerva. I hope you do not find me impertinent, but I do not know another person in whom I place my trust as I do you. The question which agitates me so is this: to what purpose of health is the procedure of the enema? They appear to be uncommonly popular among the court, and the ladies assigned to my closet and toilet are under the opinion that all civilised persons should cleanse their bowels with great regularity and copious amounts of scented waters.  
  
P.S. I find myself with a second question, Minerva. Several of the women here at —— are advising me as to the selection of suitors, and yet I have never expressed a wish for matrimony. Are unmarried women considered a risk at court?  
  
 _Paris, August 19, 16—_  
  


* * *

  
 **Letter IV**  
  
 _SEVERUS ROGUE to LUCIUS MALEFOY, from the Castle of ——_  
  
‘Ha!’ I say. ‘Ha, Malefoy, ha!’ I have already excised two of the students assigned to my tutelage, much as one carves calcified skin off of one’s feet after strenuous walking or surgically removes vestigial organs on the operating table. I fear you shall need to procure a new flautist and another soprano, as Ronald Weasley has fled the castle, and Madamoiselle Lavande Marron appears to have fled alongside the buffoon. What shall become of them both, but hordes of red-headed children with fluff between their ears and an inability to memorise simple tunes or anything else of note?  
  
I have set myself the challenge of October 1. If I have not frightened Londubat and Granger away before then, I will declare myself to be an invalid and check into hospital for observation.  
  
Also, see the enclosed musical score for your latest opera. I have corrected the errors in the continuo part and provided a superior harmonisation for the ballet in the third act. Kindly refrain from composing such utter shit in the future.  
  
 _August 19, 16—_  
  


* * *

  
  
 **Letter V**  
  
 _NEVILLE LONDUBAT to HERMIONE GRANGER, from the Castle of -- --,_  
  
Mademoiselle Granger, please accept my gratitude for your unending kindnesses to and patience with me over the past few weeks. Your explanation of the ground bass and the new methods of recitative is rather clearer than Professeur Rogue’s instruction on the same material.  
  
I consider you a great friend to me; perhaps my only friend in this cold and heartless place. Please accept this quill and inkwell as a small token of thanks; may you compose many complicated fugues with it and other such works as impress the unimpressable professor who terrorises us both.  
  
 _August 27, 16—_  
  


* * *

  
  
 **Letter VI**  
  
 _HERMIONE GRANGER to NEVILLE LONDUBAT,_ _from the Castle of ——_  
  
My dear Neville, you needn’t have gifted me such an extravagant set of tools! I have long taken an odd delight in order and scheduling, and am very much gratified to hear that anything I have said to you has been useful in the course of our mutual pursuit of the art of musicking here at ——.  
  
I have much to enquire of you, particularly as your family’s prominence has placed you in the acquaintance of many of the chevaliers here. It seems that I am being guided towards matrimony through the machinations of some of the older women at court; therefore, may I ask your opinion on the character of Monsieurs —— of —— and —— of ——? As matrimony was never my intended pursuit, I believe that a well-informed explanation of the unsuitability of these gentlemen would fulfill my need to justify my continued maidenhood to those who would sell it to the highest bidders.  
  
P.S. Has the professor attempted to convince you to trade in your instruments for the viola da gamba? Today marks the third occasion he has mentioned such to me. Of course, were I to change to the viola, I would require Madame Sibylle Trelawney as my musical tutor, and I do not think I would relish my time as her student.  
  
 _Paris, September 3, 16—_  
  


* * *

  
  
**Letter VII**  
  
 _SEVERUS ROGUE to LUCIUS MALEFOY, from the Castle of ——_  
  
Horticulture. The solution to the Londubat conundrum is horticulture. Following his disastrous lesson on Wednesday last, I sent the boy to the gardens of Mademoiselle Arianne to ruminate on his future at the court. The following day, I received a call from Madame Sprout, the English gardener, declaring Londubat to be a capable (capable?!) and talented (talented?!) hand in the orangerie. If he is not gone by the 15th, I shall eat my hat. More than that, I shall eat _your_ hat, which runs at least three times greater in size by volume and weight.  
  
See to the returned score for changes to your latest Italian cantatas; they were but hollow shells of songs, empty husks with nothing of substance to fill them. Really, Lucius, I do understand that frivolity has become a fashionable vice, but must you force us all to listen to this drivel? I could not even bring myself to examine your compositions beyond my initial perusal; therefore, all the changes here have been made by Mademoiselle Granger, who, in a mere six weeks under my guidance, has made vast improvements upon the dreck you serve up to the ignorant masses. She tells me that, in addition to composing an obbligato viol line for your chanson, she has taken the liberty to exchange the poetry you have chosen for that of Catullus.  
  
I expect you to bring me an assortment of fine liqueurs to express your undying gratitude for the manner in which I prevent you from making an arse of yourself in public. If you have finished reading the Vesalius I loaned you when last we dined together, please return it with a case of red wine and a fortified brandy or three.  
  
 _Paris, September 12, 16—_

* * *

**Letter VIII**  
  
 _HERMIONE GRANGER to MINERVA McGONAGALL,_ _at the Convent of the Flamelites of ——_  
  
My wise friend and beloved mentor, please excuse the tardiness of my reply! This place is a pit of vipers, and the navigation of my role here has brought me confusion that I never expected.

  
Shall I begin with the less-than-favourable elements of my life here, Minerva? Well, I will tell you. First, I do find that there are always some unspoken expectations placed upon people in the court, and I am not at all certain what to make of things. The women here have taken it upon themselves to make me fully aware of all of my failings with regards to my sex; I do not wear rouge on my cheeks, I refuse the enemas that are so popular amongst the nobles here (and even the king, I believe!), and I have never invited Monsieur Lockhart to weave a birdcage into my wigs. There is, on occasion, laughter in my presence. I cannot say for certain, but I suspect that I am the object of this ridicule. The older women at court seem to want to marry me off; I have been thrown in the paths of several young men at tea or during dances. The libertines at court, including the son of Monsieur Malefoy, thought me an easy mark when first I arrived; I was caught in many a dark corner of the palace or the gardens, and needed to utilise my wits to break free from them. In these situations, it is easiest to feign stupidity, I find; men are always more likely to believe that a women is a simpleton rather than uninterested in their dubious attributes.  
  
And now, that is enough of that! I shall enumerate the many blessings of my arrangement here. My musical lessons are splendid, and Professeur Severus Rogue has finally, I believe, accepted me as a student. I have been giving concerts of harpsichord improvisations (all well received!), and it has been a full three weeks since the last time he attempted to convince me to abandon the harpsichord (and Rogue's tutelage) for the viola da gamba. Moreover, he has taken to giving me the compositions of Monsieur Malefoy for my theoretical lessons. This has been a surprise! After all, there is none more famed throughout France than Malefoy; his ballets and instrumental fantasies are without compare! You yourself handed me many of his pieces to study, learn, and perform during my time with you. And yet I now believe (and please do not relay this knowledge to any others, Minerva, not to anyone!) That Malefoy’s compositions are always finished by others—indeed, are always finished by my own teacher and now also by myself! This would be a scandal were it ever to be known!  
  
P.S. I have learned that the fastest way to bring about Professeur Rogue’s good will and best nature is to point out the deficiencies in Malefoy’s compositions. This overly serious man (who perhaps enjoys wine a bit too much, given the sallow nature of his complexion?) will burst into full laughter when point out the errors in Malefoy’s work. Also, might I say how much I enjoy lessons? The professor is not a man who prefers me to bat my eyelashes like an empty-headed ninny, and he has proven an excellent conversationalist on such topics as I would otherwise have discussed with you, Minerva—the sciences and philosophies of rationality, literature, et cetera, et cetera.  
  
 _Paris, September 23, 16—_  
  
  


* * *

  
  
 **Letter IX**  
  
 _SEVERUS ROGUE to LUCIUS MALEFOY, from the Castle of ——_  
  
Weasley, Marron, and Londubat? All gone, although I am shocked that Londubat lasted as long as he did. Granger I have changed my mind about. She is, I find, mostly tolerable. However, I do not wish for any more of these. Send them to Trelawney, if you must acquire more performers to complete your orchestra and satisfy the tastes of Albus Quatorze.  
  
One additional ~~request~~ demand: keep your concupiscent offspring from harassing Mademoiselle Granger. She does not need the distraction while she is recomposing your music for you, and I think you will agree from the hearty reception of ~~her~~ your last song collection that it is in your best interest to keep Granger focussed on ~~your~~ her work?  
  
Also, the brandy from your private stores is excellent.   
  
_September 28, 16—_  
  


* * *

  
  
 **Letter X**  
  
 _HERMIONE GRANGER to MINERVA McGONAGALL,_ _at the Convent of the Flamelites of ——_  
  
Dearest friend, such tragedy has befallen the court! I know my last letter to you questioned the merits of Monsieur Malefoy’s renown, but he is still our leader and guide, and his current ailment is most serious—indeed, there is a more than a tinge of mortality about it, and I fear the worst, as it does not seem that Malefoy will recover or even last the night. Here is the story, before you hear it thirdhand from the cousin of a sister of a coachman from the palace: it is death by music. There is a melodramatic quality to this that I believe Monsieur Malefoy would appreciate; he is—was?—after all, a dramatic man.  
  
The king, having returned to public life after his own travels, illness, and convalescence, requested that Malefoy compose a _Te Deum_ in his honour. This he did, and this composition Severus and I polished up together over the course of a few evenings. (The _Christe, Rex gloriae_ is entirely my own work, Minerva, and I am ever so proud of it. I have included the score for your perusal.) During the performance itself, Malefoy’s conducting staff slipped from his control, striking his foot in a calamitous fashion, and the man collapsed to the ground.  
  
The performance was cut short, and Malefoy was taken to bed, all the doctors of the court seeing to his foot. In the seven days since this event, I have only the news of this from the servants and from Severus, who is aiding in his care. The foot, it seems, has turned purple, then red, and now a brownish sort of green. Gangrene! And Severus, based on the anatomical knowledge of the body from the readings of Vesalius, suggested that Malefoy amputate the leg to save his life. A sensible suggestion, I believe, and I think you would agree, Minerva. But the foolish, pompous man has refused! Monsieur Malefoy declares that he could not dance without his leg, and that life without dancing is not worth living, and it has been two days since he has opened his eyes. Oh, Minerva! Surely the gangrene has spread to his brain?  
  
Please pray for healing! In the meanwhile, my part, I believe, is to bring comfort to my professor and friend. He is—regardless of his jests about Malefoy’s musical abilities—still his oldest friend. The loss of Malefoy is a loss for France, yes, but also a personal loss to Severus.  
  
 _Paris, October 20, 16—_  
  


* * *

  
  
**Letter XI**  
  
 _SEVERUS ROGUE to LUCIUS MALEFOY, from the Castle of ——_  
  
You, Lucius, are a madman. How dare you refuse amputation? How dare you leave the world in such a fashion? In this, my last letter to you, I make this promise: I will watch over your son where I am able.   
  
_October 28, 16—_  
  


* * *

  
  
**Letter XII**  
  
 _HERMIONE GRANGER to MINERVA McGONAGALL, at the Convent of the Flamelites of ——_  
  
Thank you, my friend, for your visit after the funeral of Monsieur Malefoy. I did not know that you two were acquaintances in your youth! You certainly kept that secret close to your heart.   
  
Despite such sadness, I am exceedingly glad that you had the opportunity to meet Professeur Rogue, my erstwhile teacher and now my suitor. He is, I think you can agree, a good man, if, at times, a disagreeable man to those he sees as beneath his recognition. And yet with me, he has opened his mind and his heart, and I find that I love and trust him in capacities I barely understand in myself.   
  
And now, may I express the hope that we shall have your company at the wedding in December? I would be vexed it should take place without you.   
  
Adieu!  
  
 _Paris, November 13, 16—_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you happen to catch who wrote the introduction to the collection of letters? Or which kind of convent Minerva is a part of? (It's a play off of Carmelites, by the way.)


	6. VARIATION 5: Aleatory Music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _ALEATORY MUSIC, n. Also called "chance music," this musical style is one in which the parameters are not wholly determined by the composer, but by some outside force. In this example, the order of the notes from the original theme was determined by chance._

_ALEATORY MUSIC, n. Also called "chance music," this musical style is one in which the parameters are not wholly determined by the composer, but by some outside force. In this example, the order of the notes from the original theme was determined by chance._

* * *

  
so away but man invoke a that could to from with countermelodies and do had as though his man was from a past turned order  
  
Hermione could found difficult his to a Severus  
  
ugly he  
difficult anyone  
potions cold  
  
but there  
beauty he  
he was only  
woman  
  
was that own harmonies in there man rather to life than much named danced  
  
man he him to he  
  
the melodies air  
  
who was around once he well on as a learned brew was was willing hear him a against craft his named once work him rarely as a there as conjure an he as led man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is all about composition by chance. Aleatory means that the composer can’t have planned things out, so some element of the music has to be randomly selected. Think John Cage, if you’re interested in classical art music. For the chance element in this piece, I pulled out a tool from the Dadaists’ playbook. As Tristan Tzara writes: "To make a Dadaist poem: Take a newspaper. Take a pair of scissors. Choose an article as long as you are planning to make your poem. Cut out the article. Then cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them in a bag. Shake it gently. Then take out the scraps one after the other in the order in which they left the bag. Copy conscientiously. The poem will be like you. And here are you a writer, infinitely original and endowed with a sensibility that is charming though beyond the understanding of the vulgar.” 
> 
> Only I counted the number of notes in the right hand and the left, and put each through a random interval generator in lieu of the scissors and paper bag. The order of the notes in the music was randomly chosen.


	7. VARIATION 6: Gregorian chant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _GREGORIAN CHANT. n. A style of monophonic music that is without rhythm or metre. In the later Middle Ages, a second voice called the organal voice would be improvised below the principal melody, either as a drone or at the interval of the fifth. Called Gregorian because of the myth that the Holy Spirit whispered all the music of God into the ear of Pope Gregory the Great._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you know Hildegard von Bingen, this plainchant music should sound familiar, as it’s in her favourite mode: Phrygian. That’s the scale that appears when you play all the white keys on a piano starting with an E and going up an octave to a high E. The top line (vox principalis) would be the main line of the chant, with no discernible rhythmic pattern, and the bottom line (vox organalis) would be the improvised harmony line, sometimes holding to a drone pitch and sometimes following the main line at the interval of a fourth or fifth lower than the melody.

_GREGORIAN CHANT. n. A style of monophonic music that is without rhythm or metre. In the later Middle Ages, a second voice called the organal voice would be improvised below the principal melody, either as a drone or at the interval of the fifth. Called Gregorian because of the myth that the Holy Spirit whispered all the music of God into the ear of Pope Gregory the Great._

* * *

  
  
‘In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum...’  
  
 _In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word..._  
  
She recited the Gospel of John the first time he met her, a ten-year-old child with perfect Latin and the wildest hair he’d ever seen.   
  
Not that he’d asked her to.  
  
 _He_ hadn’t.  
  
But Brother Albus—the confessor priest who posed the question—was testing her memory. He let her complete the first four chapters before cutting her off, satisfied that her mind was exceptional and that she would be easy to prepare for a life at the convent.  
  
The tenth child of a poor family in the lower rungs of the Saxon aristocracy, Hermione von Grangen was a tithe, given to the church, given to God, given to intellectual and spiritual pursuits.   
  
Severus had been visiting the convent on his annual visit from the monastery where he lived and worked. Although still a youngish man, he led the scriptorium there, supervising the production of manuscripts and the brothers’ lessons in reading, writing, and illumination, his own contribution to the _opus dei_ , the work of God. The loose affiliation between his Dominican brothers and the convent’s Benedictine sisters allowed him to check in with Albus and the work of the women in their scriptorium, and through this, he had the opportunity to meet the nuns of the convent, as well as the novices like this Hermione.  
  
A few minutes in her presence, and Brother Severus was convinced that this precocious little beast with a library in her brain would give the abbess Minerva the challenge of a lifetime. She argued doctrine with Albus, questioned the parametres of Benedict’s rule, and asked after her monthly allowance of parchment and ink for her own writings.  
  
And then Severus returned to his monastery some thirty miles east, leaving this odd child and the women of the sister house under the guidance of their abbess and under the authority of their confessor.  
  
*  
  
It was not until Albus died that Severus gave much thought to Hermione again.  
  
Of course, he’d heard stories of her over the years, of how she’d taken over the teaching duties in the scriptorium so that Sister Irma could focus her energy on manuscript production, of how she’d begun composing new songs for the women to sing. But he hadn’t been given much of a reason to interact with her himself.  
  
At the age of forty-one, Severus was asked by the bishop to take up the post of the confessor at the convent. Since there was no real way to refuse the offer, he packed up his meager belongings, said his goodbyes to the men who had been his daily companions for nearly three decades, and arranged for transportation to the convent.  
  
When he arrived, he was greeted by Sister Minerva, a formidable woman with white in her greying hair and a tongue as sharp as ever, as well as a flock of other women dressed in black robes. Minerva ushered him into his quarters, pointing out some of the architectural details of the cloisters along the way.   
  
He set his bags down, and no sooner had he sat himself down that his stomach began to growl. With tutting and fretting, Minerva ushered him to the refectory and sat him down for a hearty meal of smoked fish, cooked vegetables, and brown bread. And as they broke bread together, she told him about the convent, about the expanding scriptorium, the music school, and all the work that Sister Hermione was doing to raise funds for the buildings and the surrounding fields.  
  
When they were through with dinner, Minerva led Severus to the chapel to pray.  
  
Along the way, he was introduced to a dozen women in identical black robes and head coverings, a dozen women in the loose black that marked their order and cloak their bodies.  
  
When he saw Sister Hermione organising the psalteries and choir books, he had a sudden flash of the girl she had been. She was taller now, a woman rather than a child, but the intelligent expression of her eyes was still the same.  
  
And he found himself wondering if her hair was still as wild as it had once been.   
  
Unlike her eyes, her spirit, her expression, her hair is hidden now.   
  
*  
  
Years pass—decades pass.  
  
Severus has enjoyed his life among the women at the convent. Almost one hundred women have come through the community in his time as the confessor there, and among them, he has found several excellent minds. He has also found that the women less inclined to dedicate themselves to theological and philosophical studies often produce great work of a different nature in the fields and orchards and vegetable patches, or even by the needle with their embroidery.  
  
He is not the only man living at the convent, but he is the only one who participates in all aspects of its life. There are the odd carpenters and day laborers, certainly, but none are a part of their family. He— _he_ —is a trusted brother, a spiritual guide, and the only voice singing in the lower octave during the chanting of Matins or the serene singing of Compline.  
  
How different this life is from his old one! There he was one among many, but here? Here he is unique.  
  
He has seen the passing of Sister Minerva and Sister Irma, the deaths of many of the older nuns who first welcomed him there when he took over the post.   
  
Sister Penelope became the abbess and Sister Hermione, the music director and scriptorium supervisor. They have been admirable replacements for their predecessors, building the prosperity of their community and enabling individual women the right to pursue their highest interests and discover their purposes. While he has long respected Sister Penelope and her practical wisdom in running the daily operations of the community, it is Hermione whom he finds to be a kindred spirit.   
  
Sister Hermione is eager to discuss texts the other nuns tend to avoid, Latin and Greek texts, and they have both befriended a rabbi to teach them to read Hebrew. They share their thoughts with one another over daily meals. For that matter, she is not just a prolific reader, but also a writer, and she seeks his advice on much of what she written. She never accepts his notes blindly, but disagrees with him over bread and refines her own thoughts whenever there are points of contention. Her logic has led him to refine his own thoughts as well, and even change his mind on occasion.  
  
Her correspondence eclipses even Minerva’s, and she exchanges letters with nuns and monks across all of Europe, as well as several noblewomen who are inclined to charity regarding the community and even some noblemen who find her a fascinating oddity. The scriptorium now produces, in addition to the works of Aquinas or Bernard of Clairvaux, books of visions all written by Sister Hermione herself and illustrated with embroidered images crafted by the other nuns, images of the heavens and the earth, of creation and its God, of the soul as it battles the weaknesses of its own nature. She continues to compose new music for the church, and convents and monasteries alike commission her to compose pieces for them, new songs for feast days and dedications and other events.  
  
She even invents her own language, and along with it, an alphabet.  
  
When she forges a correspondence with the pope in order to build up the convent’s importance and secure donors to purchase additional barley fields along the river, he laughs aloud. She is a cunning one.  
  
And he? He is her confessor, her principle interlocutor, her teacher, and her student. Yes, he introduces her to thinkers she hasn’t read yet. He also teaches her the new method of writing heighted neumes, a more specific way to record the melodies that flow from the universe through her hands, but really, they teach one another.  
  
She is his partner.  
  
She is his.  
  
He is hers.  
  
And it is nothing that he ever expected to have in this life.   
  
*  
  
In his twenty-second year at the convent, she composes a sung drama. It is much, much more than the simple chants and antiphons she has composed until now.  
  
No, this is a masterpiece.  
  
It is an allegorical work about the temptation of the soul, a moving piece she composes for all her sisters. They will all play their parts, all chosen by Sister Hermione for their talents and characteristics. The Soul will be sung by Sister Luna, an aethereal woman who wanders through the cloisters with a peculiar duality of innocence and deep knowledge of the world. She possesses a clear alto voice and the affection of all of the women there. The other women are cast as the Virtues: Sister Hannah sings Humility, the Queen of the Virtues, Sister Susan sings Patience, Sister Millicent is Discretion, Sister Eloise is Hope, et cetera.  
  
Hermione casts herself as Contempt of the World.  
  
As for Severus? Why, he is the Devil, of course. And he alone does not sing, but grunt and yell and holler at the Virtues. He is the enemy, the threat, and by the end of the drama, the Soul and the Virtues will conquer him and bind him so that he can do them no more harm.  
  
*  
  
In another lifetime, they would belong to one another in body as well as in mind.  
  
Is such a thing possible? Surely it must be, although he has never seen it himself. Inside the convent walls, he is able to befriend these women, his sisters. Without the possibility of bodies, of bodily intimacy getting in the way, he sees their spirits, their skills, their souls. Outside the convent walls, marriages seem to be transactional exchanges to procure peace amongst warring peoples, contracts to produce children to secure landholdings for family dynasties.  
  
He remembers his time before the monastery, his interactions with men who live in towns and villages rather than cloisters. Married men who do their duties by their wives to produce heirs, but who do not share their thoughts with them. Men who leap into the beds of other women, sometimes willing, sometimes not. Men who cannot see equality and an exchange of ideas with a woman, even if she is the mother of his child.  
  
And he knows that _that_ is nothing he would ever want.  
  
He would not choose to sacrifice his friendship with Sister Hermione for the opportunity to kiss her cheek or touch her hair, to hold her body in sleep. The price is too high.   
  
And yet.  
  
Yet.   
  
Yet Solomon sang of his love for his Beloved. He sang of their friendship and desire, of intimacy. He sang of love.  
  
He sang of his Beloved’s body, her lips, her skin, her eyes.  
  
He sang of her _hair._  
  
And Severus imagines Hermione standing before him, reciting Solomon’s song from memory: ‘Ego dilecto meo et dilectus meus...’  
  
 _My Beloved is mine, and I am his..._


	8. Variation 7: Xylomancy and Xylophones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _XYLOMANCY. n. The practice of foreseeing the future using wood. Some common practices include reading the future with the shape or size of twigs or fallen branches one finds in one’s path or tracing the patterns of logs burning in the fireplace._
> 
> _XYLOPHONE. n. A musical instrument consisting of flat wooden bars of different lengths that are hit with sticks. A larger variety of the xylophone is the marimba, which contains over four octaves of wooden bars._

  
_XYLOMANCY. n. The practice of foreseeing the future using wood. Some common practices include reading the future with the shape or size of twigs or fallen branches one finds in one’s path or tracing the patterns of logs burning in the fireplace.  
  
XYLOPHONE. n. A musical instrument consisting of flat wooden bars of different lengths that are hit with sticks. A larger variety of the xylophone is the marimba, which contains over four octaves of wooden bars._

* * *

  
  
  
‘Don’t blame me,’ declared Hermione Granger, xylophone mallets in hand as she approached him in the recording studio. ‘Blame the magic. It’s not my fault the wood is telling you to ask me for dinner tonight.’  
  
Severus slumped into his seat behind the piano. ‘Divination is tosh, and you know it, Granger.’  
  
‘Do I?’ she asked, poking him in the chest with the soft, padded sticks. ‘My N.E.W.T. in the subject seems to argue otherwise. And you didn’t complain when the wood told you to marry me, dearest.’  
  
‘Why the fuck you ever bothered with that nonsense is beyond me.’ But he gathered his things scattered across the room, through them all into his bag, and extended his arm to her. ‘Did your method of prediction tell you where I’d be taking you tonight?’  
  
‘Nope.’ She wrapped a dainty hand around his bicep. ‘As long as there’s a prawn ring involved, I don’t care where we go.’  
  
And with that, the members of the wildly successful duo Granger Danger abandoned the recording studio for the day. Their third album was almost completed, and would be ready for release by the end of the month. Then their newest tunes would be blaring over the radio waves, challenging the Weird Sisters for supremacy at the top of the charts.  
  
Wizarding radio was shit, so it wasn’t too difficult for Granger Danger to find an audience. When they broke onto the scene, witches and wizards had few choices: everyone under fifty listened to the Weird Sisters, and everyone over fifty, comatose, or possessing terrible taste listened to Celestina Warbeck.  
  
Since falling under new management, the Wizarding Wireless Network had improved considerably. Yes, the fact that Lee Jordan was a half-blood with access to the BBC meant that his programming ideas outstripped anything that the WWN had ever dreamt up before.  
  
His _Desert Island Melodies_ was particularly popular, a radio hour that invited famous guests on to talk about their lives alongside the songs they would want to have with them were they ever to be stranded on a desert island without their wand. Harry Potter’s hour on _DIM_ was listened to by over half the country when it was released, and Viktor Krum’s _DIM_ hour brought several songs from Eastern Europe into Britain for the first time.  
  
When Granger Danger was interviewed, they did it as a joint venture.  
  
 **JORDAN:** _Hermione, I knew you back in school. I can safely say we all predicted that you’d end up in something serious like politics or business. How did music become your passion?  
  
_ **GRANGER:** _Excellent question, Lee. After the war, I had seen so much.... I decided to go into Healing to try to help. Let me just say that the Healers at St Mungo’s have my ultimate respect. I made it into my second year there when I decided I couldn’t deal with the dunderheads who showed up in emergency care.  
  
_ **SNAPE:** [snorts] _I believe the phrase ‘balls deep in a lethifold’ was used to describe one of your patients.  
  
_ **GRANGER:** [sighs] _What is_ wrong _with people? The experiments I witnessed were enough to put me off sex for years.  
  
_ **JORDAN:** _Do I want to ask, or should we move on to another topic?  
  
_ **GRANGER:** _You would not believe what kinds of things I found up people’s Orifice-That-Must-Not-Be-Named. When someone arrived with half a tea set up his rectum, I decided that medicine was not for me. It was time to reconsider my life choices.  
  
_ **JORDAN:** _And you’re now a jazz marimba player, writing original tunes with Severus Snape, the former Potions professor who scared the socks off of all of Wizarding Britain.  
  
_ **GRANGER:** _Yes, well, I looked over all the N.E.W.T.s I’d received, and thought I’d return to something I excelled in. Divination.  
  
_ **SNAPE:** _Which is ludicrous, as almost all divination is a thoroughly unscientific form of wishful thinking, but at least she’s a qualified charlatan.  
  
_ **GRANGER:** _Oh, hush, you! At any rate, Lee, I could never read tea leaves personally—of course I know the history and the theory behind it all, but my success with that medium was always so-so at best—or deal with crystal balls. However, arithmancy—  
  
_ **SNAPE:** [coughs] _Statistics!  
  
_ **GRANGER:** _—and xylomancy were both right up my alley.  
  
_ **JORDAN:** _Xylomancy? That’s a rare practise, Hermione.  
  
_ **GRANGER:** _Particularly the way I do it. I started by reading twigs I found on my morning runs—  
  
_ **SNAPE:** [coughs] _Walks.  
  
_ **GRANGER:** _—around Regent’s Park, and the wood told me to pursue music. Music! I was so surprised. I’d always been interested as a child, but I’d dedicated myself to my schooling instead. Now the wood was telling me that I must pursue my dreams.  
  
_ **SNAPE:** _It didn’t hurt that she was independently wealthy due to her war prize money and her investment schemes. She didn’t have to find a profession that paid well any longer.  
  
_ **GRANGER:** _I began taking piano lessons, which is when I found Severus played, as he was buying himself a new instrument in Muggle London one afternoon in the same shop where I was studying. Then I switched instruments to the marimba, and would you believe it? The wood of the xylophone was so easy to read. All my xylomancy is done on my xylophone.  
  
_ **JORDAN:** _And how did the two of you start making music together?  
  
_ **SNAPE:** _She showed on my doorstep with myriad demands and excellent coffee. Apparently, she’d read the wood, and it told her that we were going to record covers of Celestina Warbeck’s old B-sides.  
  
_ **JORDAN:** _That was your first album, wasn’t it?  
  
_ **SNAPE:** _Yes. And evidently the wood told her to call the album_ B Best: the Forgotten Songs of a Legend _, which we did. Frankly, the wood gave her excellent advice, since nobody on the WWN in those days would have aired recordings of original songs. It’s almost as though one didn’t need divination of any kind to make that choice, but just a cunning mind, skepticism at the open-minded nature of Wizarding culture, and some business savvy.  
  
_ **JORDAN:** _Now for our listeners, let’s play a cut from that album. Everyone listening out there, here is Granger Danger’s piano-marimba duet of “Beat Back Those Bludgers, Boys, and Chuck That Quaffle Here.”  
  
_ **SNAPE:** [mutters] _With lyrics like those, I think you’ll find it works better as an instrumental._  
  
[music begins to play]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is easy listening jazz, pure and simple, with syncopation, easy triplets, and 11th chords. I just love the idea that xylomancy, divination by wood, and xylophones, wooden instruments, are both real. 
> 
> Or... _are_ they both real?


	9. Variation 8: Ranz des Vaches

**VARIATION 8: RANZ DES VACHES**

_RANZ DES VACHES. n. A simple melody traditionally played on the horn by the Swiss Alpine herdsmen as they drove their cattle to or from the pasture. Also a cause of “the Swiss sickness,” or nostalgia, and if played or sung by soldiers amongst Swiss mercenaries in an attempt to abandon their military posts, a punishable offense. The piece of music I've composed for this is an alphorn duet, with the first one calling to the second before they repeat themselves and play together._

  
<https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7owbfi?playlist=x6jsz7>

* * *

  
Once upon a time, an alchemist lived high in the mountains.  
  
He was surrounded the valleys and the clouds, the grazing cows who frequented the area and the owls who flew overhead. But for the passing animals who scampered through his lands and the customers to whom he sold tonics and tinctures, his life was one of peace and quiet.  
  
This man was a severe sort of fellow who snapped and sniped at fools who wasted his time, and so his name suited him: Severus Snape.  
  
Every evening, Severus would take down his alphorn and play a long, slow melody out to the mountains. He had no cows to bring home to pasture. No sheep to bring home so they might find warmth under his roof. Nobody was waiting for him to call, and yet he still did it. Still he blew that alphorn every night, sending music into the hills  
  
And one evening, someone answered.  
  
Another alphorn!  
  
In a perfect echo!  
  
Severus was stunned. Who was out there, listening to his call? Who was answering him? For that matter, who else in the hills possessed an alphorn?  
  
The next day, he played a more complicated horn call.  
  
And he waited.  
  
It wasn’t long before the other alphorn repeated the call back.  
  
This went on for several months, and each evening, Severus tried to stump the other alphorn. Each day, the other alphorn mastered the melody, playing it back in the exact tempo and pitch that Severus had used.  
  
One day, the other alphorn started to add its own melodies, elaborating on the tunes that Severus had used.  
  
He took it as a challenge. Why, he wasn’t about to be beaten by another alphorn!  
  
But then one summer day, after Severus rumbled his alphorn calls out into the world, he was met with nothing but the sound of crickets singing and birds chirping, of wind blowing through the highest trees.  
  
The other alphorn was silent.  
  
*  
  
Severus tried to ignore the feeling of foreboding deep in the pit of his stomach, but he could not help but wonder about the person behind the other alphorn. When he went on his monthly round of sales up and down the valley, wandering from village to village and hut to hut to peddle potions and healing tonics, he kept his eyes peeled for any clues about the mysterious stranger.  
  
At Frau Weasley’s cottage, Severus sold Calming Draughts and Invigoration Draughts and Pepperup Potions aplenty. With more children than Old Mother Hubbard, she needed all the assistance she could get.  
  
At Herr Aberfoth’s hut, Severus sold the goat tonics that he always tucked in his bag for the man. There were more goats in the fields around Aberforth’s hut than anywhere else in the valley.  
  
At Madame Umbridge’s home, however, Severus found himself quite unprepared. He usually brought potions of a cosmetic variety to Umbridge: hair tonics and skin cremes and whatnot. This time, however, she asked for his Forgetfulness Potion and his Befuddlement Draughts.  
  
Odd, that.  
  
Once his regular rounds were completed, Severus returned to Madame Umbridge’s house while she was out during the day, just to see if anything else was amiss. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary. Her house was kept immaculately as ever, the red geraniums bursting from the flower boxes on each window.  
  
As he left, though, he heard a plaintive cry from beneath the old shed. When he came closer, he found a tabby cat, much larger than the cats most people kept as pets. She was groggy and tired, and while she didn’t look to be in any pain, she did look confused.  
  
Severus was concerned. While people could be terrible, animals were innocent creatures that deserved protection. He picked up the forlorn cat, scratching behind her ears and listening to her purr. Then he pulled out a few draughts for her health, tipping them down her throat.  
  
‘I’ll come back for you tomorrow night, little one,’ he said. ‘I’ll come for you.’  
  
*  
  
Later that evening, once the sun had set, a young woman walked beside the river at the valley’s floor.  
  
A nobleman with long, blond hair approached her. ‘You! You there!’ he cried, snapping his fingers at her and tutting. ‘I find myself in need of some sustenance. What food do you have on your person this find evening? I shall buy it from you at once.’  
  
She backed away from him. ‘I will not sell you my bread or my cheese.’  
  
‘I shall pay you twice its value,’ the man said.  
  
‘No. Besides, you look like you have never gone without food day in your life, and I often know hunger.’  
  
‘Three times its value!’  
  
‘No.’  
  
He huffed in annoyance. ‘You perverse, intractable girl! Don’t be foolish. Just take the money for the food, and you will be able to buy yourself far more with my gold at market tomorrow.’  
  
She frowned, looking at him sadly. ‘No. No, I will never be able to go to market.’  
  
The blond man called into the night. ‘Narcissa! Narcissa, where are you? I need you, woman!’  
  
In an instant, a sorceress appeared, bedecked in a jeweled gown and shining in the moonlight like Diana herself.  
  
The young woman gasped, shocked to see such beauty. She fell to the ground in awe.  
  
‘Tell me, dear husband,’ the sorceress said. ‘What has upset you so?’  
  
‘Her,’ he said, pointing to the young woman in the dirt. ‘She denied me food and sustenance on my journey. Surely you will curse her for her cruelty.’  
  
The young woman began to shake in fear, but she did not cry as she awaited her fate.  
  
‘Rise,’ the sorceress said.  
  
The young woman stood, clasping her hands before her as she attempted to calm herself.  
  
‘Have you denied my husband food?’ she asked.  
  
The young woman nodded. ‘Yes, but—‘  
  
‘Silence!’ the sorceress said. Then she looked over at her husband with fondness and affection. ‘He’s a beautiful man, but rather like a child at times, don’t you think? Demanding and impatient, unable to provide for himself.’  
  
The young woman held her tongue.  
  
‘He needs others to remind him that he is not a lord who can bully around others or a person who can rely on my powers rather than do his own work,’ said the sorceress.  
  
The blond man looked chastened at that.  
  
‘And therefore,’ said the sorceress, taking the young woman’s hand. ‘Therefore, Hermione,’—that was the young woman’s name—‘I shall reward you by removing the curse you carry.’  
  
Hermione burst into tears, wrapping her arms around the sorceress as she repeated her thanks.  
  
For you see, Hermione had been under a curse placed upon her by Madame Umbridge, a curse which turned her into a large tabby cat during the day but allowed her to return to her human form with the rise of the moon each night. As a cat, she hunted mice during the day, but as a young woman, she baked bread for herself and made her own cheese. She even procured an alphorn for herself, playing it in the evenings, hoping that someone would come for her. Hermione’s plan to free herself had been hampered by Umbridge, though, as the suspicious older woman had begun drugging Hermione with additional potions.  
  
But now Hermione was free.  
  
She remember the gentle hands of a man who healed her, who promised to return for her. So she decided to return to Madame Umbridge’s shed the next evening, hiding from the woman who had cursed her so she could speak with the man who had helped her.  
  
*  
  
And the next evening, he came.  
  
‘Here, kitty, kitty,’ Severus called, looking around for the large tabby he had seen the day before. He held out a piece of liverwurst for the cat to eat, if she was hungry.  
  
Instead of a cat, a young woman came out from behind the shed.  
  
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’ve been waiting to meet you.’  
  
Severus glanced behind him. ‘I’m sorry, have we met? I was looking for someone else.’  
  
She took his arm. ‘We’ve met before. My name is Hermione.’  
  
‘Severus,’ he said. ‘Severus Snape. I practise alchemy.’  
  
‘I have quite a story to tell you,’ Hermione said. ‘In the meanwhile, I am without a home, and I need a place to live until I find a way to provide for myself. I am a hard worker, Severus.’  
  
He paused, still befuddled by this young woman and her smiles. ‘I... I have a spare bedroom. And I could use an assistant,’ he stated.  
  
Hermione gave a cry of delight, and kissed Severus on his cheek. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much, Severus. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll pack up my belongings.’  
  
‘Of course,’ he said, and he watched as she ducked into the shed, only to return with a rucksack packed with some clothing, a few loaves of bread, some cheese, and some sausages.  
  
And an alphorn.  
  
‘Do you play?’ he asked.  
  
She grinned. ‘In the evenings, yes. I’ve been answering another alphorn across the valley. At least, I was playing before I fell so ill. Now, though, I feel well enough to play again. Perhaps with a partner?’  
  
He smiled a crooked smile. ‘I would be honoured,’ he said.  
  
And he led her away, winding across the valley to his home, high on the other side. In the days to come, they would learn to work together in all things: tricking and trapping Madame Umbridge, brewing tonics and medicines for others, and planting a garden above the timberline.  
  
And in playing the alphorn, sending forth music into the mountains every evening at sunset.

**Author's Note:**

> There are a lot of different time periods, instruments, and musical styles here. Is there one you think Severus and Hermione should tackle?


End file.
